


Anything and Everything You Wanted to Know About Amelia Richardson

by crowleyshouseplant (orphan_account)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-09
Updated: 2013-02-09
Packaged: 2017-11-28 17:04:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/676793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/crowleyshouseplant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Let's know each other better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anything and Everything You Wanted to Know About Amelia Richardson

You’d been taught your whole life not to say no to people, to men especially, told to smile and sit pretty, say yes sir and do what you’re told.

It took you a long time to learn how to say _no_.

But you say it now, and you say it often, and you say _no_ to men who loom over you and make you feel small and insignificant except for that hard marble of _no_ clenched between your teeth

You say _no_ to men like the tall person who came into your office with a bleeding dog who said his name was Sam.

You say _no_ because taking this dog is not your responsibility.

And you are tired of shouldering the weight men have dropped onto your shoulders because that’s what they expect of you, as they parade around as white knights expecting tokens of your affection without even wondering that maybe, just maybe they’re not all that likeable at all really.

Your father says you shout too much but you don’t care.

Don said that too, but sometimes he smiled when he said it, like maybe he didn’t really mind, and you think about that as you stand over his grave, his empty grave, and you shout and you shout and you hate the words that come out of your mouth because you’re sure he tried to be safe, you’re sure he wanted to come back to you, but shit happened but god

it just wasn’t fair

and you slump beside the grave with dirt under your nails and tufts of grass gripped through your fist--

and you wonder if he had the chance to read your last letter--

the one you spritzed with your pomegranate perfume because he’d wondered how you smelled like these days.

How you had told him you were washing with scented shampoos now—peach and strawberry, a different one every time the bottle was empty.

You sell the house because you hate the way it looks like Don

smells like Don

like Don would make such weak coffee in the morning and you always had to open it up and put more grounds in quick

boiling water for Don on the stove so that his cup would always be weaker

and you think about how he’d wipe his muddy boots and kick them off on the entryway

and how he’d sleep with himself curling in next to you, little spoon to your big spoon (why can’t we be sporks, you had whispered once when you were both blissed out from sex)

and you sell the house to get away from Don.

You don’t believe in ghosts but surely his ghost found his way over here and haunted you.

And you think you’ll never find home again because Dorothy there is no place like home not anymore.

And you don’t put up pictures of your family in your motel room because it’s not yours

And you don’t think about the color the walls would be because it’s not yours

And you don’t rearrange the furniture because it’s not yours.

And then you find the tall man there with the dog that’s now cleaning your pipes and you think there should have been a notice he was coming today but you don’t kick him out because you’re not ready to yet and you talk and it turns out that he doesn’t have a home either just like you--

that he’s lost his brother like you’ve lost your husband.

And you think, maybe, maybe, maybe--

_we can both be messes together_

and that’s okay too

but then Don came back and you think _oh my god_

\-- I thought you were dead --

(and how could you give up hope)

((because there was a military funeral and everything and so many tears were shed--there was a certificate))

this isn’t the story of Wesley and Buttercup

this is your story, yours, and that’s what had happened

(except not)

and you want to see Sam again, and you want to see Don again

and you are not their rope to pull tug of war on

you are not their game to play

and you hope

you hope maybe

they’d want you too

and they’d want each other 

coming together with love because of you

but you bite your lips because you don’t know how to say that. 

Mom and Dad and two point five kids is the language you’ve ever learned even though you’re unlearning it now

((and sometimes you wonder if you’re even a girl but those are too scary, too too scary right now)).

And when Sam leaves you go back to Don, and you don’t share the same bed because it’s too much right now to be intimate and Don thinks so too 

_we’ve changed a lot_

_we’re different people_

And you take turns on the couch, and one day you sit closer, and then the next day and the next day until you curl up into him and he into you, and you wonder at this new space this new intimate space that’s not quite romantic but not sexual--

it feels weird to call him husband.

He’s Don.

And when you run into Sam again--

when you say _hello_ in all the ways you know how--

 _i love you_ in all the ways you know how--

and you ask him to choose because you cannot deal with people disappearing without word again, without goodbye again, not after Don.

And he doesn’t seem to understand this isn’t either-or and you don’t have the right words, so you wait until you do, you think there’ll be time to explain to Sam when you have the right words

but he doesn’t choose you, doesn’t show.

You go back and you change into your flannel pajama bottoms and you curl up next to Don and he just holds you close, and he says, he didn’t come 

and you shake your head _no._

And he holds you closer, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know you miss him.

_I do, I do._

You wipe your eyes and you turn on the tv, hold Don’s hand but not too tight, not too hard.

You know how to let go.

You think you’ve finally learned.


End file.
